January 16, 2012

First, the photo. Why that photo? Some people think he looks awful — old, squinty, puffy — but I think it's an effort to evoke the old "HOPE" poster. Actually, it looks more like "hope" than the original Shepard Fairey image, which looks a little hunched-up and blank by comparison. The new image shows Obama, burdened and beleaguered, having sacrificed his youth for us, peering into the future... and yes, there is still hope.

Second, the article, by Andrew Sullivan. Based on the cover headline — "Why Are Obama's Critics So Dumb?" — I don't even want to read it. It just seems like red meat for Obama fans. And what a cliché! Republicans are stupid. That's what they always say. It's not just red meat, it's the same old red meat they always serve. You know, you have to be kind of dumb to be so easily pulled in by the assurance that you're with the smart people and those other people are stupid.

For the article under that headline to be any good, it would need to offer criticisms of Obama that are ostensibly smarter than the what the supposedly dumb critics are putting forth. A mere defense of Obama — you've got to be dumb not to appreciate him — would be so insipid.

UPDATE: I respond to Sullivan's complaining about my failure to read his article.

Wasn't "News(giggle)Week" sold for a dollar? It has now become the Obama campaign propaganda machine.

Do they mention that there is a lawsuit that has been given standing to continue, and has a hearing as to Obama's eligibility to be on the Ga. ballot, on Jan 26? Of course not. Hundreds of these suits are coming, and eventually the puppy dog press, along w/ "law blogs" will have to report on them.

The mass realization of Obama's ineligibility due to birth as a British subject is coming. The precedent of Minor v. Happersett will be front and center (a natural born Citizen is one born in the US of 2 US Citizen parents).

Obama is certainly not a "Creature of their own", in order to prevent "improper ascendant" (improper ancestor), as explained by Federalist #68, by A. Hamilton, a man who was present during the ratification of the US Constitution.

“[I]t remains simply a fact that Obama has delivered in a way that the unhinged right and purist left have yet to understand or absorb. Their short-term outbursts have missed Obama’s long game … [T]he president begins by extending a hand to his opponents; when they respond by raising a fist, he demonstrates that they are the source of the problem; then, finally, he moves to his preferred position of moderate liberalism and fights for it without being effectively tarred as an ideologue or a divider. This kind of strategy takes time. And it means there are long stretches when Obama seems incapable of defending himself, or willing to let others to define him, or simply weak. I remember those stretches during the campaign against Hillary Clinton. I also remember whose strategy won out in the end.”

They use that one most of the time, but they never fail to break-out the other cliché when the first one is too hard to sustain: Republicans are evil!

They can't use stupid on Romney, so they will use evil, it is all they have. That and religious bigotry, which they will also use. The battlespace is already being prepared with Obama's new-found interest in attending church.

The new image shows Obama, burdened and beleaguered, having sacrificed his youth for us, peering into the future... and yes, there is still hope.

The job wears people thin. In this case, though, he hasn't really been doing much since the first year of his term, so I'm going to have put the blame squarely in the lap of some angry black chick somewhere.

over 4 years since the recession started, there are still almost 25 million Americans unemployed or underemployed. That includes 5.6 million who are long-term unemployed for 27 weeks, or more than 6 months. Under President Obama, America has suffered the longest period with so many in such long-term unemployment since the Great Depression.

PS:Newsweek’s circulation was 3.14 million in the first half of 2000. By the second half of 2009, that dropped to 1.97 million.

Kind of like this?"They get bitter, they cling to guns or religion or antipathy to people who aren't like them or anti-immigrant sentiment or anti-trade sentiment as a way to explain their frustrations."

Or kind of like this?"If they bring a knife to the fight, we bring a gun," Obama said at a Philadelphia fundraiser Friday night. "Because from what I understand folks in Philly like a good brawl. I've seen Eagles fans."

In a thrifty moment i bought a very cheap coach seat across the country to Seattle. I am sitting in about half the very cheap seat because the other half is occupied by a fat person who fell asleep reading the subject article on dumb Republicans. I assume she is a lefty. She is taking up half the seat of the guy by the window as well. I dont want fat people to be inconvenienced or to have to be mindful of my space but to have them thinking they are smarter because of their politics is unbearable. I think fat people should drive everywhere. I am pissed.

As time goes on I keep getting dumber and dumberer. I'm so dumb now that I can't even understand the left's positions anymore. I'm too stupid to get the logic, the historical evidence, or even the compassion behind them. But, my vote still counts, and I ain't gonna vote for something I don't understand. I think that makes me a right winger, but what do I know?

the other half is occupied by a fat person who fell asleep reading the subject article on dumb Republicans.

When she wakes up you should point to the page and let her know that Obama has taken more Wall Street cash than any President in the history of America and never before have so many American's been on food stamps.

“[I]t remains simply a fact that Obama has delivered in a way that the unhinged right and purist left have yet to understand or absorb.

Um, really?

In the 30 months since the recession officially ended, nearly 1 million people have dropped out of the labor force — they aren't working, and they aren't looking — according to data from Labor's Bureau of Labor Statistics. In the past two months, the labor force shrank by 170,000.

This is virtually unprecedented in past economic recoveries, at least since the BLS has kept detailed records. In the past nine recoveries, the labor force had climbed an average 3.5 million by this point, according to an IBD analysis of the BLS data.

The way to read this piece is to pretend Obama is Sullivan's boyfriend. He's just been at a party where some of the people at the party have said mean things about his boyfriend. Some have said he won't last, he'll be unfaithful. And others have said he's not good enough for dear Andrew. And there were other negative opinions expressed as well.

This is Andrew's response to all the partygoers' criticisms of his boyfriend.

After Andrew leaves, the partygoers all get together and say, "Oh, my, that Obama's got our friend Andrew wrapped around his little finger! Poor Andrew!"

The cover might be meant to generate buzz, but the piece itself is just pathetic in the original sense of the word. Poor Andrew!

After reading the article, I could not find where he claims that Republicans are dumb,( that was done by the headline writer) but he does say this:"But given the enormity of what he inherited, and given what he explicitly promised, it remains simply a fact that Obama has delivered in a way that the unhinged right and purist left have yet to understand or absorb."But of course it is right to argue about just what the record is...

it remains simply a fact that Obama has delivered in a way that the unhinged right and purist left have yet to understand or absorb

I can understand his record perfectly well, in addition to noting the obvious hypocrisy between his stated positions on deficit increases by Bush and his own deficit increases as POTUS. What's difficult to absorb is the sheer enormity of the federal debt.

The thing to remember above all about Andrew Sullivan is that he is an unprincipled whore. He needed a few bucks, and so he whipped out a few paragraphs of Obamalatio for a magazine that nobody reads at a time that has zero strategic importance for Zeroe's campaign, and polishes up his conservative leftie street creds. Overheard at a NewsWeek editorial meeting: "Andrew is Conservative, and did you know he was gay?"

"4. Mitt and Ann married on March 21, 1969--four months after he returned from his mission. Future President Gerald Ford was a guest at their wedding. Ann was attending college at Brigham Young University and Mitt transferred there, eventually graduating first in his class in 1971 with a degree in English and a 3.97 GPA. Their first son, Taggart, was born on their first anniversary.

5. The young couple moved to Boston so Mitt could attend Harvard Law School. He was also accepted into a joint M.B.A. program at Harvard Business School. Their second son, Matthew, was born and in 1975 he graduated cum laude from Harvard Law School and in the top 5 percent of his class at HBS."

Sullivan: "I write this as an unabashed supporter of Obama from early 2007 on. I did so not as a liberal, but as a conservative-minded independent appalled by the Bush administration’s record of war, debt, spending, and torture. I did not expect, or want, a messiah."

In other words, Obama lovers are self-evidently stupider than his critics.

"Obama has delivered in a way that the unhinged right and purist left have yet to understand or absorb."

True. It's hard for anyone to absorb the enormity of Obama's incompetence, the massive running up of the debt, the crony capitialism, the assault on Constitutional rights, the lavish spending on vacations and other personal activities, the total disconnect with the plight of the the typical American, ....

Can we stop with this assertion? Obama didn't inherit anything, he actively campaigned for and asked for the job. He knew going in what was on the table and if he didn't, simply reinforces the fact he was and is unqualifed for the job.

You think he'd be more respectful of the Constitution if he had experience as front man for the Combine running Chicago? Politics isn't like bench pressing or playing "Angry Birds", where more time spent in practice leads to improved results on some universally agreed-upon metric.

Obama isn't American enough to be President, that's the problem. His limited experience and intelligence are the best things about him. Those limitations keep him from doing even more damage.

Isn't passing judgement on something you haven't read, well, dumb? To take pride in not reading, in prejudging, is something we are all warned against in high school. Why choose to act dumbly? And in public, as a journalist? It certainly gives conservative blogging a very bad name.

What a brilliant reply! First, you complain about the PHOTO, then you declare you don't want to read because, of course, you already know what the article says. It's disappointing when someone who claims to be an intellectual and works as a law professor refuses to engage honestly with the writings of someone she disagrees with. (And the comments! A pack of hyenas would do as good.) Shameful.

The awful thing is that they chose that photograph of Obama because they really thought it was a flattering likeness. In just such a way they look at his Presidency and think that America has never been better off......In the photo the viewer looks up at Obama, but Obama does not look down at them. Instead, Mr. President looks toward the far horizon. There with the grace of his superior wisdom and experience he will lead us to safe harbor after these troubled waters. That's what Newsweek readers see in that photo....Myself, I can't help but wonder if they photoshopped the hairs out of this up nose photo. I wonder if his nose hairs are turning gray.

I believe one way you can identify stupid in politics when someone is deeply, carelessly and crassly critical of their opponents. They talk big ugly about their enemies, and they have no respect at all for them. Maybe it's not stupid. Maybe it's just scary. Or maybe it's just too bad.

Really. Arguing that Obama inherited anything close to what he's created is as stupid at you can get. Plus, it ignores what the Democratic Congress did the last two years of W's presidency. (Which the Democrats want to make no claim to, but they passed the bills. Remember their fabulous 100 day plan?)

The Dems/liberals are in heavy denial. Sullivan voted for Obama because of "war, debt, spending, and torture." And, what he'd get in return? War, debt, spending, and murder.

I used to have Newsweek in my office waiting room. About 5 or 6 years ago, I leafed through an issue. It had been about 10 years since I had last read the magazine. I was shocked to realize that People magazine was better written. I didn't renew the subscription when it came up.Looks like it has only gotten worse.

"I believe one way you can identify stupid in politics when someone is deeply, carelessly and crassly critical of their opponents. They talk big ugly about their enemies, and they have no respect at all for them. Maybe it's not stupid. Maybe it's just scary. Or maybe it's just too bad.”

I think that to view the President of the United States as the enemy is unfortunate (be it Obama, Bush, Clinton, Bush, Reagan, Carter, etc...)

Re Romney is stupid meme: Liberals consider that people who disagree with them are either stupid or diabolically evil. The people in Kansas are stupid. Those other Republicans who write books or succeed in business are evil. Romney belongs in this latter class.......The party of Corzine, Rubin, Soros, Buffett et al. will claim that his profitable work is not proof of his intelligence but rather of his greed.

The thing to remember above all about Andrew Sullivan is that he is an unprincipled whore. He needed a few bucks, and so he whipped out a few paragraphs...

Exactly. He is very gifted at using his words to support whatever position will pay him the most.I have followed his writing since he started at the New Republic. I used to admire it. But he proved himself a man of no principle when he turned on a dime in 2003 against everything he had so eloquently supported regarding the Iraq war and the Bush administration. Within a span of 24 hours what was once good and just was now evil. It was like reading a woman scorned.

appalled by the Bush administration’s record of war, debt, spending, and torture.

Obama increased the deficit 3 fold (and the national debt by 36%), increased spending to an unprecidented level, bombed Lybia, insreased the troop levels in Afghanistan, kept open Gitmo, and utilized the targeted killing of American citizens.

It's like this. Let's say you're cleaning out the fridge at the office. There's one paper bag that smells especially bad. When you open it, there is a ziplock with what appears to be a sandwich inside. The ziplock is clearly labeled "shit sandwich."

@ Old Dad: Your analogy is colorful but remains just that: an analogy. It holds no logical sway here. To attack an essay without reading it simply because you dislike the person who wrote it (or the person's views or reputation), is foolish and intellectually dishonest. Why not honestly grapple with the argument?

The only "shit sandwich" here is the attitude that mindlessly condemning Sully's article has any validity whatsoever. Thus, Althouse's (and her pack of me-too fans) argument may, fairly, be dismissed without further ado.

One page 1, he calls the right's arguments "internally incoherent" and "not faintly connected to reality", and on pages 3-4, the left is "missing the screen for the pixels" and "truly deluded".

"Internally incoherent" and "truly deluded" for right and left sound correct to me! "Not faintly connected to reality" is a Sullivanism--leave it alone.

I hate the flood of statistics without a single hyperlink of support, but that happens a lot.

He says the Heritage Foundation "pioneered" the much-despised individual mandate. Well, did they or didn't they? It doesn't really matter, but I still think it's interesting. What does it mean that Nancy Pelosi took cues from the Heritage Foundation?

Also: are we at the point where we have experts on Obamacare? We've gone from needing to pass the bill to find out what's in it, to having experts. That happened?

Besides ordering the hit on Bin Laden, it seems premature to call anything Obama has done with foreign policy an "accomplishment". Sullivan is silent on Obama's "plans" for dealing with Iran's nuclear aspirations. It's not his job to undercut his own arguments, but I remember he had a lot more to say about that when Bush was president.

Saying Obama "has not had a single significant scandal to his name" is a way to continue avoiding "Fast & Furious", a story that would pique media interest more if it happened under a Republican administration. (Calling that an understatement is an understatement.)

This is an interesting space. It appears - based on my reading of the original post, and the follow-ups - folks here do not allow facts to complicate their received wisdom. Obama is evil. An empty-suit. Those who are supportive of his policies, or are willing to acknowledge his accomplishments, have to be his fans, his bots, lefty - by definition. I get it. Finally. How dumb I've been hitherto.

Bush was given an accounting scandal of historic proportions, the dot-com bubble bursting (and when Bush said things weren't going great, Democrats whined that he was "talking the economy down"), horribly atrophied intel services and a massive plot to attack multiple sites at once all but completed before he got into office.

He didn't, however, whine about it.

And he dealt with an opposing party controlling at least one House of Congress for half of his Presidency --- just like Obama as well.

I did so not as a liberal, but as a conservative-minded independent appalled by the Bush administration’s record of war, debt, spending, and torture.

Yes, crazy Andy, Obama's record in all is significantly better. Really.

Perhaps you should take Sullivan's challenge and actually read it and respond with facts? Wouldn't that be the responsible thing to do?

While it's great Sullivan dropped his investigative gynecology quest in re Palin --- he hasn't written much of anything factually accurate.

".. Those who are supportive of his policies, or are willing to acknowledge his accomplishments, have to be his fans, his bots, lefty - by definition. I get it. Finally. How dumb I've been hitherto..."

The funny thing is that Sullivan kissed GWB's ass just as much before Bush disavowed gay marriage and the Iraq war that Sully shamelessly waved his pom-poms for turned sour. He's just a natural-born suck up.

This whiny inherited excuse is just a punk ass way of trying to excuse your own failures. It is really old and really juvenile.

Was the economy shitty and getting shittier by the moment when Bush was transitioning out and Obama was transitioning in? Hell, yes.

However, it is what you do with your inheritance that tells us just who and what you are.

Suppose my Grandma died and I inherited her old house that was falling apart and needed to have paint, new roof, plumbing retrofit etc etc.. The house is a piece of crap and has been neglected for years.

I can inherit this house and sit in it and whine that I didn't get a really GOOD house. I can just open the doors and let the neighborhood derelicts, welfare and crackheads move in and further trash the place. I can continue to whine and snivel that my stupid Grandma let me inherit this piece of crap.

OR.....I can get to work and make something out of the old place. Gradually repair and replace the bad things in the house and improve not just the house, but also the whole damned neighborhood.

Obama and his sycophants want to whine and wallow. A real leader would accept the burden and get to work. Make the hard choices to demolish that useless leaking sun-room that is sucking up all the utility bills.

Work!?!?! Not in the Democrat's or Obama's lexicon.

So, don't give me this "he inherited it bullcrap".

It is what you DO with your inheritance, not what it WAS when you got it.

A headline like that appeals to dumb people. It is like telling an ugly girl she is sexy. In her heart of hearts she knows it is a lie but in the meantime she will do whatever you want her to do. Such is politics.

Phil said...I read the first page, it was too stupid to continue. Did you know, for example, that the stimulus is successful in ways that none of us have even begun to understand?

Funny, I just saw this:

How Stimulus Spending Ruined Buffalo *Note: Back in 2004, the Buffalo News estimated that the city had garnered more federal redevelopment aid per capita than any other city in the country, a total of more than half a billion dollars since the 1970s.

Liberals are like so smart. They keep trying failed ideas over & over.

Hoosier Daddy said..."... "But given the enormity of what he inherited,.."

Can we stop with this assertion? Obama didn't inherit anything, he actively campaigned for and asked for the job.

Despite protests on the Right, it is still true that Obama inherited a huge steaming bag of shit from Dubya. Worse, it wasn't just from Dubya...but all sorts of turds given in the way of LBJ entitlements, Shut down domestic energy sources Carterism, Reagan Voodoo Economics and the Gramm/Armey cabal of pay to play, Open Borders, and deregulation of the Wall Street sharks. Plus idiot "One Worlder" free trade and globalism mantra from HW and Bubba.

But Obama made it worse.Fixing it will mean skewering a lot of sacred cows. Democrat ones like open-ended entitlements.Republican ones like tax cuts for the wealthy and laissez faire trade with China BOTH "create jobs".

The funny thing is that Sullivan kissed GWB's ass just as much before Bush disavowed gay marriage and the Iraq war that Sully shamelessly waved his pom-poms for turned sour. He's just a natural-born suck up.

Sure, he has lots of education and has a degree from an elite institution. But like many in government who have similar educational backgrounds and pedigrees, he has learned to be stupid.

===================Yah, Bender..go with the "Romney is a stupid Elite...but Perry is real smart for a Texan", meme.

Maybe try the "Perry must be smarter because his thinking on everything is unchanged since he graduated 6th grade....while stupider men like Romney show they are stupid because they changed their minds on a lot of stuff after 6th grade, " argument.

Or just explain why Romney and a number of other very successful men are stupider than the noble laborers at your local Megachurch. Or you, for that matter...

On his website, Sullivan directly hits Anne Althouse, Hindraker, and others. Has fun with them for going all Rambo on an article they openly acknowledge they didn't read, filled with opinions and such they are.

He asks is it too much for them to read the piece before jumping all over it, focusing instead on the title (which he claims he didn't write.). But regardless of whether he wrote the headline, OF COURSE it's asking too much for the right bloggers to read his piece carefully, before sounding off.

And btw. His article pissed me off, as Sully often does. But at least I read it.

=================Lets give credit where credit is due. Obama is a disaster domestically..but his foreign policy does have some real successes:

1. He tempered down a lot of the anti-Americanism that spread like fire around the world on Bushes cowboy "my way or the highway...it's all about the Terrahist Evildoers!" days.2. He has managed to whack a lot of radical Islamoids. And deflect the moaning and blubbering of the "human rights activists".3. He helped Sarkozy and Cameron get rid of Qaddaffi. Some downsides to that, but all in all, it WAS time for regime change in a number of Arab countries. 4. He stood up to the Israel uber alles Zionists. (so did Dubya, to some extent..)5. He has properly reordered our strategic focus away from crappy little ME nations, 'Stans, and declining Europe - over to the Pacific and dealing with rising China and it's desire for regional hegemony.6. He pushed properly to get us out of Iraq - ignoring the Neocons that say we "OWE!!" the noble purple-fingered freedom lovers another 20-30 years and 100 billion a year and thousands more dead and maimed Americans to help make Iraq a western democracy and stop Muslim from killing Muslim instead of GIs. 7. He is setting the stage to end America's longest war, the Afghan nation-building fiasco. Again ignoring the Neocons, who say we "OWE!!" the noble Afghan freedom lovers another 20-30 years of nation-building so that it will never host "Evildoers!" again.

And Iran is a bit early...but it seems that slowly, save the Han Race, he is getting the world into a consensus that Iran with nukes is something no one wants and something that extreme sanctions have to be done..then if that fails, military force.Neocons wanted to move right into a major war with the "Heroes" of America going it alone against Iran..asserting that it would be a cakewalk and we would be welcomed as liberators by "Nena's friends" and the Green Revolution...

How can all you dumb butts forget that Obama won the Nobel Peace Prize, right before he started bombing, making drone attacks, assassinating terrorist leaders and the targeted killing of American citizens.

He fooled the hell out of the Nobel prize committee. That's an accomplishment!! No wonder Newsweek thinks you're all dumb.

He tempered down a lot of the anti-Americanism that spread like fire around the world on Bushes cowboy "my way or the highway...it's all about the Terrahist Evildoers!" days.

We're still hated --- and have people quite opposed to us taking over several countries...a few with our expressed support in doing so.

2. He has managed to whack a lot of radical Islamoids. And deflect the moaning and blubbering of the "human rights activists".

Nobody took the activists seriously because everybody knew they'd shut up the moment a Democrat was in office. Much like how homelessness is NEVER an issue when the Dems are in the WH --- but always one when the GOP is there.

3. He helped Sarkozy and Cameron get rid of Qaddaffi. Some downsides to that, but all in all, it WAS time for regime change in a number of Arab countries.

Quite illegally, mind you --- and the results are worse, which takes some doing.

4. He stood up to the Israel uber alles Zionists. (so did Dubya, to some extent..)

One often forgets that a small country without a ton of resources is the sole problem in the entire world.

5. He has properly reordered our strategic focus away from crappy little ME nations, 'Stans, and declining Europe - over to the Pacific and dealing with rising China and it's desire for regional hegemony.

...by selling the US to China at attractive rates. Great plan.

6. He pushed properly to get us out of Iraq - ignoring the Neocons that say we "OWE!!" the noble purple-fingered freedom lovers another 20-30 years and 100 billion a year and thousands more dead and maimed Americans to help make Iraq a western democracy and stop Muslim from killing Muslim instead of GIs.

...by trying and failing to get Iraq to let us out of the agreement signed by Bush in terms of when we leave.

You DID know that Bush negotiated the departure and Obama desperately tried to avoid, right?

7. He is setting the stage to end America's longest war, the Afghan nation-building fiasco. Again ignoring the Neocons, who say we "OWE!!" the noble Afghan freedom lovers another 20-30 years of nation-building so that it will never host "Evildoers!" again.

It was the Dems who said Afghanistan was the "necessary" and "moral" war --- and then Obama proceeded to utterly screw up the war beyond all rational measure.

And Iran is a bit early...but it seems that slowly, save the Han Race, he is getting the world into a consensus that Iran with nukes is something no one wants and something that extreme sanctions have to be done..then if that fails, military force.

Which will have less support than our Iraqi incursion, mind you. It will turn the Iranian people against the US and into the arms of their oppressors.

On his website, Sullivan directly hits Anne Althouse, Hindraker, and others. Has fun with them for going all Rambo on an article they openly acknowledge they didn't read, filled with opinions and such they are.

How cute. Somebody actually reads Sullivan nowadays. Has he uncovered any more information on Palin's uterus?

What has he ever done to warrant being taken seriously after beclowning himself so thoroughly?

Also, Ann doesn't actually discuss the contents of the article, so crazy Andy doesn't read Ann's posts. She commented on the terrible photo and that the headline belies the content and that the headline is clearly intended to only attract Obama sycophants.

Yes, Perry is a dumb ass. He's such a dumb ass that Texas has a healthy economy while the rest of the country has a steaming bag of shit, courtesy of all the Ivy League smart folks in D.C. and Wall Street. And Romney is a genius, such a brainiac genius that he still proudly promotes RomneyCare.

Sullivan is an interesting guy. He is smart, but most of the time he thinks emotionally rather than analytically. The article is a just a longwinded way of saying Obama is great. He calls for four more years to finish the job without suggesting what Obama intends to do. The tell on lack of objectiveity or rationale analysis is the following setence:

"It is not an exaggeration to say it prevented a spiral downward that could have led to the Second Great Depression."

He offers no basis for his view. Any time a person adopts the democratic talking point of avoiding a great depression, you know that you are not getting anything other than partisan and/or biased flackery. I wish someone in the media was smart enough to question the flacker about the derpression claim , such as, (a) since the GDP started growning in the second quarter before Obama's policies had any chance to effect the economy, how can you say that Obama's policy prevented a depression; and (b) if a great depression was on the horizon, how come other countries who did not have Obama's policies did nto plunge into a depresssion?

I'm afraid the media will buy into the prevented a great depression spin and help him a great deal in the election.

Note that the fellows who showed up to scold for not discussing the "facts" offered none.

Probably didn't read it either, hm?

Say... anyone watched the British sit-com "Spy?" The little boy in it is like Alex Keaton but half the age, twice the IQ, and so annoying you want to throttle the little sh*t. In one scene they have him reading a three inch thick book on George Bush. But what made me think of it in relation to *this* is when his dad quits his job (to find another one) and the kid says (to the best of my recollection something close to) "Tim, regardless of the neo-socialist dystopia in which we reside, I still consider unemployment to be failure."

Obama certainly delivered on some things, but they're hardly what conservatives want done, or think are good for the country. But we're supposed to like him anyway, and the fact that he *did* something is supposed to be what is important. He has accomplishments! Wonderful.

We're not supposed to care about the unemployment, we're supposed to be happy that he "accomplished" a bunch of government hand-outs. Food stamp use is up! Like that's a good thing. Government is supposed to take care of us. Like that's a good thing. And we're not supposed to care, in fact we're supposed to view capitalism and the private sector as inherently and inescapably morally suspect. Evil, even if somewhat necessary.

I'm sorry to say it, Tim, but even in this neo-socialist dystopia, I don't view government support as a moral good, nor reason to overlook unemployment or private sector atrophy.

What Obama has "accomplished" is bad for us. Higher food stamp use is not a "win". Unemployment is not an economic multiplier.

Sullivan has to continue polishing Obama's knob, or else he might finally get deported for those drug charges, like any non-rich, non-politically-connected alien would have been.

And for the record, I skimmed Sullivan's article. It's mostly a bunch of hyperbolic, unsupported assertions and uses a lot of unspecific adjectives. It's Sullivan's usual magical thinking, though the "thinking" part seems to have faded away at this point. It would be really hard to "respond" to the facts because there really aren't any.

Did my best to read a majority of the comments here. I was immediately reminded why I don't come to this site anymore But I foolishly followed the link from Andrew to see what the "Stupid" right wingers were saying. Yep, it was, for the most part, remarkably stupid, cut and paste, redundant, and shallow. Thanks for the reinforcement.

Did my best to read a majority of the comments here. I was immediately reminded why I don't come to this site anymore But I foolishly followed the link from Andrew to see what the "Stupid" right wingers were saying. Yep, it was, for the most part, remarkably stupid, cut and paste, redundant, and shallow. Thanks for the reinforcement.

Did my best to read a majority of the comments here. I was immediately reminded why I don't come to this site anymore But I foolishly followed the link from Andrew to see what the "Stupid" right wingers were saying.

Anybody who thinks Andrew has position to call somebody stupid is in poor position to call others dumb

Any time, sweetheart. Notice you just read his blog and didn't read the article either.

Say... any of you really smart folks have an idea how to explain the logic of a business decision to run a "news" analysis with that title? The people it calls "dumb" won't read it and the people who think we're all "dumb" won't bother to read it either, since they already know what it says.

One of you brilliant, open minded, smart kids explain that, why don't you.

"How cute. Somebody actually reads Sullivan nowadays. Has he uncovered any more information on Palin's uterus?"

First of all, I think a lot of people do read him, in all fairness. I am one of them. I find myself strongly disagreeing with him lots of the time. But then, I make a point of reading lots of things I do not agree with or even like. Don't you?

BTW: His treatment of Palin was shrill and stupid and I always said so even though I find myself in near total disagreement with her on the positions I have actually heard her take. But btw, I found his early cheerleading of Dubya to have as little substance behind it, and to be as shrill and pouty and disgusting, as were his hit pieces on Palin. I wonder if you detected the same thing? If you were reading him back then anyway?

Then you write:

"What has he ever done to warrant being taken seriously after beclowning himself so thoroughly?"

Well, I find he has a provocative blog that often makes me think, and not always about politics. He's got some great apolitical stuff actually. He's excellent at the sacred blogospheric currency of linking; you can get to a lot of places and learn a lot of things, you might not otherwise have discovered, through him. I do celebrate that.

On politics, there are times where I find him to be very insightful. I also find him at other times, to be self-righteous, pouty, shallow, over the top, etc. That, by the way, pretty well sums up my feelings about the blog we are currently posting on, as well.

I love how "Andrew" has sent over his little army of junior uterine spelunkers to inform us, again, that Daddy thinks we're dumb! dumb! dumb!

Go ask Daddy Andy how he can offer such glowing praise for a politician that continues to oppose my right as a gay man to enter into civil marriage with the partner of my choice? Or is Andy still playing Darwin and waiting for Obama's position to "evolve"?

Come on, you can do better than that. "You didn't read it either! You didn;t read it either!" First of all, one doesn't HAVE to have read something, so see there's a core silliness to attacking something one has not read. All one needs is to think about it for a sec.

Not only did I read it but I wasn't surprised by any of it, because I'd seen him write pretty much most of these things before. He spends more than half the essay, actually, haranguing "the left." Some of which content I find to be utter bullshit. Some of which I think has teeth.

Why would anyone read something the didn't like, and that they don't think is well-written? That's that pernicious old notion that reading is like taking bad-tasting medicine, and that reading things you don't want to read is "good for you". Nonsense.

Wasn't Sullivan last year's winner (or runner up) for his own von Hoffman award for getting things so spectaculary wrong? Yet he has the temerity to scold us for being "so dumb" for getting things so wrong. Even his most cloistered sychophants vote him a boob for calling things wrong.

Sullivan must be kidding. He must be trying to be an a polemicyst or something like Hitchens was. Thing is, Hitchens at least made people think.

Not only did I read it but I wasn't surprised by any of it, because I'd seen him write pretty much most of these things before. He spends more than half the essay, actually, haranguing "the left." Some of which content I find to be utter bullshit. Some of which I think has teeth.

Sullivan isn't fit to slurp up Hitchens' post binge vomit. His writing is predictable and his best years as a public intellectual were way back before he blessed us with his presence on these shores.

He is a dull-witted, unimaginative twit who can't write a word without consulting his wandering penis and firing up a fat one, and not necessarily in that order.

Sullivan wallows in boredom disguised as self-righteousness culminating in a damp thud of attempted British catholic schoolboy enlightenment.

He shelters himself in the cloak of Orwell invocation, never realizing he's naked underneath, with his balls shriveling in the chill wind of reality.

He finds himself beholden, like the whore he is, to the latest power that suffers his presence on the pretense that he represents conservatism in any form. He has become a favored plaything of Bill Maher and Tina Brown, wagging his tail with joy at the attention like one of his fabled beagles.

One expects this sort of behavior from a lapdog. A public intellectual, not so much.

"...But I foolishly followed the link from Andrew to see what the "Stupid" right wingers were saying. Yep, it was, for the most part, remarkably stupid, cut and paste, redundant, and shallow. Thanks for the reinforcement."

Don't let the door hit you in the ass on the way out.

Being a liberal must be utterly exhausting, what with all the effort defending jealousy, theft, and lies. And the constant stream of grievances. You liberals are all such little whining bitches.

Why don't you and this president just leave the rest of us alone??? Because you can't help but stick your noses where it doesn't belong, that's why.

How many shit sandwiches am I supposed to eat before I'm allowed to say that I don't want to eat the next thing labelled "shit sandwich"?

Andrew Sullivan had his second chance for me to read his drivel. And his third, fourth, fifth, tenth... Eventually I gave up. A headline like that is not going to persuade me to give him another chance.

Yeah, I was serious on Obama's foreign policy. I give him a respectable "B" grade for reversing much of the damage Dubya did to our image abroad and getting us out of the two Neocon nation-building adventures in a measured way. The public is fed up with Endless War. And fed up with being told we "owe it!" to any foreigners in need of our blood and treasure as our noble burden to bring Freedom!, Uplift! to all 4 corners of the earth.

Unfortunately for Obama, that "B" comes with an "F" on most domestic matters.

Foreign policy will not drive who wins or loses this election...unless some serious foreign policy blow up hits Obama or a good segment of the population comes to believe the Republican candidate is a war-thirst Neocon catspaw like McCain was perceived to be.

Obama's decent foreign policy record will not matter, otherwise. And a lot of what Dems consider a "success talking point" doesn't exactly resonate with voters.

"Belgium likes us more, now!"Voters - "So??""Obama killed bin Laden"Voters - "So? I don't know a single person who wouldn't have told the CIA once they found bin Laden to get some trigger-pullers together to go in whack the guy...had they been President. About as tough a call as the Nixon Administration agreeing with NASA to launch the Apollo 11 moon rocket."

Palladian you write: "Why would anyone read something they didn't like, and that they don't think is well-written? That's that pernicious old notion that reading is like taking bad-tasting medicine, and that reading things you don't want to read is 'good for you.' Nonsense."

I did not say I didn't think his posts are well-written. I find him to be one of the better writers of the regular bloggers, actually. As far as reading things I don't like. I read a lot of conservative stuff, maybe even more than I read articles and websites that reflect my views. I think there is value in it.

As for Althouse and others on here who make a primary isssue of the insulting broadstroke nature of the word "Dumb" as it is used on the cover. I mean, does it get any richer?

Seriously, I cannot think of a popular blogger who is MORE contemptuous of, who exudes MORE digust for, people with whom they disagree, than one Anne Althouse. And a lion's share of the commenters are no different.

"Not only did I read it but I wasn't surprised by any of it, because I'd seen him write pretty much most of these things before."

Uh huh.

I suppose you did read it. Sorry for those lost moments of your life. I don't think that any of the drive-by scolds read it, though. Instead of whining "you aren't discussing the facts in the article" they could have easily, nay, with no effort at all, cited a specific.

Take your word on it, though, that Newsweek promoted an article on the cover with nary a single new thought in it.

And that all of those being harangued for failing to read it, who thought they already knew the contents and didn't want to waste their time were right.

Jay said...Cedarford said...Yeah, I was serious on Obama's foreign policy.

Who cares?

You're obviously terribly uninformed. It would be like a 6th grader telling me they were "serious" about physics.

================Pity for you the Neocons are now a dead force in politics....

*****************Don't Tread2012 - "Even Neville Chamberlain threw in the towel at some point and admitted failure."

Britain was not destroyed as a great nation by Chamberlain. It was destroyed by an unsustainable Empire that involved them in endless wars and caused them to neglect their economic competiveness and fiscal health.

The genius of the Neocons was using 9/11 to expand their pet "Munich!!" argument past a truly dangerous nation like Germany or the Soviet Union which had global reach to a preventative war Dream List of some 30 countries that they wanted "The Heroes" to attack...."Lest some Hitler rise in the Congo, Yemen, Syria, S Ossetia..." Ron Paul is showing just how sick even military, military vets are of endless Neocon wars and the whole "Churchill would have not stood by" rhetoric. Ron Paul is getting the highest donations of any candidate from the military, and military vets by saying the wars and endless intervention that is bankrupting America has to stop.

Sending Dubya's "Churchill Totem" back to the UK was a good move, IMO.

Well, Synova, I am saying I was not surprised by what he wrote, but I am *also* saying that as someone who reads his blog with fair regularity. Even the most popular bloggers pull in an infinitessimal number of readers, really. Certainly I would imagine that many readers of Althouse would be encountering Sullivan's arguments fresh.

As for the first-line news publication observation, fair enough. There is an obvious difference, here, and your point is well taken.

But whoever reacts to disagreement consistently, with contempt and disgust, must still at some point recognize that this is how they operate, be it opinion blogger, blog commenter, or copyeditor of a weekly news rag. Qualities of soul are still qualities of soul.

It irritates me that Newsweek is still in every medical, dental etc. waiting room, college lounge area (paid for by the college) and it is, and has been, nothing but a propaganda piece for decades.

As for "Obama's ineligibility due to birth as a British subject is coming" -- i don't give a rats ass where he was born. What really matters is that he did not grow up in America, has not lived a "normal" American experience, and obviously has never loved this country-a country that one can argue gave so much to his parents, as it did us.

His Mom had a frickin' Ph.D. - and she chose to flit about the globe, dragging her child she chose to keep hither and dither, and ultimately (tantamount to) abandoned him to her parents. I truly feel for the guy, but I do not want him as our President. And let's not forget, AS PRESIDENT he chose to LIE about his mother's cancer and the insurance co.s etc. I'll agree he was screwed by his parents, but to elevate his father the way he did, then lie about his mother is despicable. Dude has (justifiably) deep issues.

"All these smart commenters who suddenly came out of the woodwork to criticize Ann yet can't distinguish between 'I don't even want to read it.' and 'I haven't read it.'"

Except of course, it was more than "I don't want to read it." It was a mini-ventfest--oh, and a terribly ignorant one. What a shocker, when "I don't even want to read it" is followed by a string of ignorant assumptions about what's actually in the thing you "dont even want to read."

Here is what Anne wrote:

"And what a cliché! Republicans are stupid. That's what they always say. It's not just red meat, it's the same old red meat they always serve. You know, you have to be kind of dumb to be so easily pulled in by the assurance that you're with the smart people and those other people are stupid."

There are lots of things wrong with this paragraph. One is it has no relation to the article (nor, actually, does it have anything to do with the Newsweek cover, since many Democrats are also critical of Obama. It's a big country.) and so is therefore ignorant. Sort of like your comment, James.

Everybody now... Reach under your thigh, grab tight, raise your hand, and JERK THAT KNEE!!! The fact-free Opinion Machine is in full effect.

Nice to know that Chicken Little still didn't get the fact that Tina Brown (or some other editor) gave the article its title, not Sullivan, and that half of it is a criticism of what the left got wrong about Obama. But hey, why let some basic facts get in the way of a perfectly unhinged opinion? Or a dozen of them, for that matter?

Watching the implosion of the useless GOP hatred/insult machine is simultaneously sad, perplexing, strange and welcome. I guess gracelessly losing their grip on power is preferable to them than a more graceful exit.

And I think that Christopher Hitchens had more respect for Andrew Sullivan than he would have had for the birdbrains espousing their idea-free, reactionary, knee-jerk "opinions" here. The two were friends, after all.

Sullivan pointed out that no one here read or reads anything that they don't already sympathize or agree with, and he's right. (And with readers like that, who cares what they have to say anyway?). The opinion-essay doesn't need to source the facts it cites when they are so easily retrieved - not that anyone here would bother to do so. They prefer to retain the aura of snobby elitist perfection they carry around with them at all times. And they see unhinged, unsupported, irrational, arbitrary and entrenched opinion as their only protection from any one of the copious facts that could be cited here as well, to challenge what was written in that article.

Enjoy your hatred. May it keep you warm at night. Your fevered brains are on overdrive and have produced nothing useful in today's politics other than the filthy mess that you resent others getting the credit for cleaning up. That's the height of arrogance, and conservatism's sole contribution to politics today. Own this legacy to your elitist tradition. You resent the fact that there's nothing in it to take pride in, but that's not anyone else's problem.

Jay, you see, reads points of view different from his own all the time. He relishes this kind of engagement and often learns from it. What he most detests are people who carry on as though they already know it all.

Jay the sum total of what you have written in this thread is the equivalent of a child plugging his ears and screaming "lalalalalalalala." So the condescension and pretense to intellectual engagement is thereby made even merrier.

I did so (write this) not as a liberal, but as a conservative-minded independent . .

At least he’s not calling himself a conservative any longer. That’s progress.

Mitt Romney accuses the president of making the recession worse, of wanting to turn America into a European welfare state, of not believing in opportunity or free enterprise, of having no understanding of the real economy, and of apologizing for America and appeasing our enemies. According to Romney, Obama is a mortal threat to “the soul” of America and an empty suit who couldn’t run a business, let alone a country.

Leave aside the internal incoherence—how could such an incompetent be a threat to anyone?

Let’s follow Andrew’s thinking. Romney says the president doesn’t understand the way the economy works, which means the president is “incompetent” and an incompetent person is no threat to anyone. Therefore, the president’s lack of economic understanding is a non-issue, and Romney is incoherent for being concerned. Brilliant!

God, I hope the rest of the article is as cleverly argued. I only got halfway through the first page.

How long until you take issue with another word? How about the indefinite article "a"? Did you see any problematic usage with that? How about with the definite article "the"? Surely it's possible I misused those...